Poetry, short musings, exploring my reality through words.

T-shirt

I’m thinking of how it felt waking up to the sunrise in a room that wasn’t my own.

I watched it rise higher as I thought of the night beforehow magic was made, co-created with quick wit, intimacy, hearing the stories of the rocks and art in your room.

I tried to rest, and when sleep wouldn’t take me, I reached across you for the cup of water on your nightstand. You startled awake.

I rose from the bed to leave. We talked lightly as I put my clothes on.

I don’t remember the words you used or the tone in your voice when you instructed me to leave the shirt I had borrowed to sleep in.

And I think in that moment I knew I wouldn’t be back in this room or in that bed or under the two blankets sleeping next to you without a pillow because you only had one.

I took the T-shirt off and didn’t listen to your explanation of what it meant to you and don’t remember if I even asked or if I said something funny to blunt how it felt being told to leave this piece of you.

It was in that short sentence I realized you didn’t want any loose ends. I would be a temporary connection, an afterthought.

Now looking back at a moment meant to mean nothing but charged with more than I could’ve grasped in the fog of alcohol, I wonder what it is that T-shirt means to you.

Maybe you just like it. It’s vintage and cool and worn and it looks like its traveled and I loved the way it felt when I put it on.

When I took it off it felt cold and used and I wanted to tell you that I didn’t want to take it from you in the first place.

And in hindsight I know that the t-shirt didn’t fit, it wasn’t mine to wear. Maybe the contrast of it on me was too telling. Maybe it was clear just how much it did not belong to me.

It was that simple request to leave what was yours exactly where you wanted it that led me to hear what you have said from the start.

In the end, I’m thinking of how it felt waking up to the sunrise in a t-shirt that wasn’t my own.

I liked wearing something important to you and although it was temporary I liked how it felt. I liked who I was in that t-shirt.